Being himself greatly terrified at these appearances, he ran to the Friar's apartment, and with some difficulty prevailed upon him to go with him to the haunted room. The Friar at first excused himself upon account of the young woman's being there in bed. As soon as he entered, and saw the crosses, he prostrated himself on the ground, and uttered many prayers and incantations, to which the honest landlord most heartily said Amen.
The poor girl, in the mean time, lay in a kind of trance; and her father, when the prayers were over, ran down stairs for some wine, a cordial being necessary to recover her: the Friar, at the same time, ordered him to light and bring with him a consecrated taper; for hitherto they had no light but that of the vision, which was still strong enough to discover every thing in the room.
In a short time the old man entered with a taper in his hand; and in a moment all the luminous appearances vanished. The girl, soon after, recovered, and gave a very sensible account of all that had happened; and the landlord and the Friar spent the rest of the night together.
The Friar, however, to shew the power of the dæmon, and the holy virtue of the taper, removed it several times from the chamber, before the day broke, and the crosses and inscriptions were again visible, and remained so till the taper was brought back, and then vanished as at first.
When the sun arose, the Friar took his leave to go to matins, and did not return till noon. In the mean time the two Dutch officers came home, and soon learnt what had happened, though the landlord took all the pains he could to conceal it. The reports they heard were confirmed by the pale and terrified appearance of the girl; their curiosity was greatly excited, and they asked her innumerable questions. Her answers, instead of extinguishing, increased it. They assured the landlord, they would not leave his house, but, on the contrary, would afford him all the assistance in their power.
As they were young gentlemen of a military profession, and Protestants, they were at once bold and incredulous. They pretended, however, to adopt the opinion of the landlord, that the appearances were supernatural; but it happened that, upon going into the room, they found the remainder of the taper, on the virtues of which the landlord had so largely expatiated, and immediately perceived that it was only a common candle of a large size, which he had brought by mistake in his fright.
This discovery convinced them that there was a fraud, and that appearances that vanished at the approach of unconsecrated light must be produced by mere human artifice.
They therefore consulted together, and at length agreed, that the masses should be continued; that the landlord should not say one word of the candle, or the suspicions it had produced; that his daughter, the next night, should sleep in the apartment which had been quitted by the ladies; and that one of the officers should lie in the girl's bed, while the other, with the landlord, should wait in the kitchen, to see the issue.
This plan was accordingly, with great secrecy, carried into execution.
For two hours after the officer had been in bed, all was silent and quiet, and he began to suspect that the girl had either been fanciful, or that their secret had transpired: when, all on a sudden, he heard the latch of the door gently raised; and, perceiving something approach the bed and attempt to take up the clothes, he resisted with sufficient strength to frustrate the attempt, and immediately the room appeared to be all in a flame; he saw many crosses, and inscriptions enjoining silence and a passive acquiescence in whatever should happen; he saw also, in the middle of the room, something of a human appearance, very tall, and very luminous. The officer was at first struck with terror, and the vision made a second approach to the bed-side; but the gentleman, recovering his fortitude with the first moment of reflection, dexterously threw a slip knot, which he had fastened to one of the bed-posts, over the phantom's neck: he instantly drew it close, which brought him to the ground, and then threw himself upon him. The fall and the struggle made so much noise, that the other officer and the landlord ran up with lights and weapons; and the goblin was found to be no other than the good Friar, who, having conceived something more than a spiritual affection for his landlord's pretty daughter, had played this infernal farce, to gratify his passion.